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Improving the image of nursing and midwifery

NHS England’s Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England calls on professionals and members of the public to help improve perceptions of nursing and midwifery:

As the NHS marks its 70th birthday, we want to celebrate the vital contribution that nurses and midwives have made to its success, and how the profession has evolved over the decades. But we must also ensure we are fit for the future challenges that face the NHS.

Shaping a consistently positive image of nursing is something we all agree is crucial to help attract and retain staff, but will also ensure nurses and midwives are in a position to influence policy decisions that affect the health and wellbeing of people in England, not least at a time of change and reform in the NHS.

Professor Jane Cummings spoke about our aims to promote nursing and midwifery at last year’s Chief Nursing Officer summit, to help ease workforce challenges including predicted retirement rates over the next five years, to increase routes into nursing and to ensure that the perception of the profession matches the reality: high-status careers with limitless opportunities, offering massive job satisfaction and value for society.

Over the last six months, we’ve been actively engaging with nursing staff, alongside our key partners and stakeholders such as professional bodies, patients academic, students and health organisations. This has included a national workshop attended by 70 people and contributions through social media such as Twitter chats.

Through this work, we identified there is confusion and a lack of clarity about how to become a nurse or midwife, and poor knowledge of the range of opportunities that come with nursing and midwifery as careers, particularly among young people. We also identified the need to bolster the nursing voice in the development of policy.

As a result of these findings, NHS England and the Royal College of Nursing have identified the need to improve perceptions of the profession across the following three groups:

Educational environments, from primary schools through to adult learning.

Within the current nursing and midwifery workforce, and

Across key influencers such as the public, politicians, other professionals and the media

As part of the work to identify and shape specific projects that will sit under each of these areas, we want to hear from as many nurses and midwives as possible. You may have already seen a Twitter conversation managed in partnership with Crowdicity designed to capture as many ideas, opinions and comments on issues relating to the perception of nursing.

There will be three phases to this engagement, with the first open now focused on the following topics:

Young people in education

How might we encourage young children in the school system to see that nursing is a fantastic career choice?

How can teachers promote nursing and midwifery as a career choice?

Current nurses and midwives

How do we maintain the passion that nurses and midwives feel when they first join the profession?

How can we maintain our own pride in this profession to promote nursing and midwifery to junior colleagues and attract people to start their own journey?

Decision makers in the health and care system

How can we change the way that nurses and midwives are recognised so they are seen as a core profession equal to all others in healthcare?

How do we create an environment where nurses and midwives are more involved when making key decisions about healthcare?

The content generated via Twitter will be read and reviewed by a panel consisting of student nurses and midwives, senior leaders, academics in the nursing and midwifery professions and representatives from third sector organisations with the aim of including as many as possible in this ongoing and developing work.

We will be sharing more details of this ongoing engagement in the coming months, including at a dedicated session by Jane Cummings at the CNO Summit In March that will celebrate how nursing and midwifery in the NHS over the past seven decades.

Hilary leads a nursing and midwifery team in NHS England that focuses on a number of national statutory functions and professional development priority areas.

She is a registered Nurse and Health Visitor with over 30 years’ experience of working in the NHS. Hilary has held a number of director posts and a deputy chief executive post in both Commissioning and Provision and has been working at National Director level for the last four years.

From 2013 – 2017 Hilary also volunteered for BBC Children in Need and was a committee member that undertook grant making for the North of England. She is also a trustee of a charity, “Giving to Gambia” and enjoys working in the Gambia for a short time each year as a volunteer to support initiatives that improve health and wellbeing.

Hilary worked in the Calais refugee jungle in 2016 and witnessed the reality of individuals, living through unimaginable trauma. She saw children being lured into the hands of criminals for want of a better life and seeing this first hand brought home the sheer importance of the NHS and other organisations across the health and care system working together to protect the most vulnerable people in society.

Hilary received a CBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to nursing, particularly her work to safeguard some of the most vulnerable people in society